116

"His weal

"What of that, my dear?" said Scrooge's nephew.
He don't make hi
He don't do any good with it.
He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking

is of no use to him.

self comfortable with it.
ha!—that he is ever going to benefit us with it."

ha, h

Scrooge

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew.

couldn't be angry with him if I tried.

"I am sorry for him : Who suffers by his ill whims

Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and h

I won't come and dine with us. much of a dinner."

What's the consequence? He don't los

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge' niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to hav been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well, I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?'

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right - blushed. to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister— the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses

I.

EXERCISES

Written and Oral: Write after each of the following names an apostrophe and s, following it by some word beginning with s, as, sake, staff, sayings, stories, soldiers. Then decide whether or not you prefer to omit the s in certain of these cases. If in one, why not in all? Pronounce each expression and decide whether or not the form with of would sound better.

*

*The words acquaintance, conscience, goodness, and Jesus, when used in the possessive sense (usually followed by sake), are generally written with the apostrophe following, but without the s.

II. Oral: Tell in your own words all that is indicated by the apostrophe in the following cases, distinguishing ownership from other relations:

This boy's shoe; those boys' shoes; my boys' shoes; John's pony; Helen's pencil; ladies' slippers; men's boots; children's rubbers; babies' socks; a year's rest; a month's vacation; the sun's distance from the earth; my childhood's earliest thoughts; her ladyship's whim; the wide world's joy; six spears' length from the entrance; boyhood's play; the doctor's rules; to your heart's content; the wild bee's chase; the wild flower's time and place; Mason and Dixon's line; Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries; John and William's book; John's and William's books; Longfellow's poems; the winter's storm and sleet; Lincoln's assassination; a city's mourning; the king's evil deeds; the trees' leaves; Solomon's temple; a pound's weight; William and Mary's reign; Elizabeth's and Mary's reigns; Rice and Besant's novels; Dickens' and Thackeray's novels; Warner and Twain's "Gilded Age ;" Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas; Bancroft's, Prescott's, and Motley's histories; Charles the Sec ond's reign; For David my servant's sake.

III. Oral, and then Written: From the examples given above determine a rule to govern your own use of the apostrophe with s to show (1) ownership; (2) joint ownership and authorship.

IV. Suggested: Report in writing a short conversation, using as many contractions as possible. Imagine yourselves, if you choose, as buying groceries, or dry goods, or plants, or fruit, or as at a shop where various articles may be repaired.

CHAPTER XVII

OUR ENGLISH AND ITS SPELLING: THE USE OF A

DICTIONARY

If, as I hope, you have begun to write in your diurnal,* journal, or diary, every day, it is probable that you are thinkin more than before about the spelling of words.

I mentioned to you a while ago that hero of the Middl Ages, whose name managed to get itself spelled in eighty-fiv ways. Now, I presume, some conscientious girl is thinking "I wonder which was the right way!" and I fancy I hear a boy say, "Well, I guess it can't make much difference how we spell it, after all!" And in both of these remarks there is wisdom. For, if there is a right way in any matter, we should seek and follow it. But in the days of brave Dietrich von Bern, there was no one right way; so it made little difference how his name was spelled.

you,

that

You remember, I hope, as an early lesson told spoken speech always precedes written. Even those world epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, said to have been composed by the blind Homer, lived long, from generation to generation, wholly by word of mouth, sung and related by wandering bards. Then, at last, they were reduced to writing and have become today your inheritance and mine.

This leads me to tell you a secret, not yet generally known.

It is the doublet of journal. All *Diurnal is an old form not now in use. three words come from the Latin dies, day. In the time of Pepys, diurnal was as common a term as diary. The change from d to j is often found.

I would whisper it to you, if I might, for fear someone may tell you it is not the truth. But as you grow older, even if not now, you will know for yourselves the truth of what I say. And this is the secret: Our spelling as it exists today is largely a matter of accident, and often a very bad accident, at that. Upon some of your faces, no doubt, a relieved smile takes the place of the anxious look put there by unsuccessful struggles with your spelling book. You certainly have my sympathy, in case you are not eye-minded, that is, quick to retain forms taken in thru the eye; and it may comfort you somewhat to be assured that your grandchildren will be spared some of your pains. You today, however, must spell English as it is now written, no matter how hard you have to work.

Nevertheless, in a dozen words you may now take an easy, natural spelling. The directors of the National Educational Association of our country have adopted in printed reports the twelve following spellings: tho and altho; thoro and thorofare; thru and thruout; program; catalog, prolog, decalog, demagog, pedagog. I should advise you all to adopt these forms, for they are certain soon to be the ones most used, several of them being already endorsed by the latest dictionaries.

You may be glad, too, that the board appointed by our Government has simplified the spelling of many geographical names, leaving off the h in burgh and the ugh in borough. The recent textbooks in science leave off the final e in hundreds of words where it was formerly used.

It does not follow from this that you or I may spell words in any careless way. The thing for you and for me to do is to take the simplest form of spelling that has the sanction of our

!

120

Is it

greatest scholars. These all agree that the spelling of English
should be somewhat changed as soon as possible. We hav
dropped a k from almanack, rhetorick, musick, and simila
words. We have dropped the u from such words as harbour
honour, governour. A famous catchword in the spelling
schools of fifty years ago was phthisic. This word is now
spelled as it has always been pronounced, simply tisic.
not possible that some day we may be as wise as the Italians,
who spell philosophy and photography, filosofia and foto-
grafia? And is it not probable that just as the k has dropped
but
from musick, so the useless e will drop from hypocrite, opposite,
and similar words? Not that you or I may drop it now,
that others who come after us will probably do so.

Our language can not be spelled wholly according to
sound, because it has many more sounds than characters to
represent those sounds. Moreover, no two communities, no
two individuals even, pronounce exactly alike. But, after all,
we are today, more than ever before, tending toward more
uniform and more simple speech. How could this be other-
wise when electricity and steam make neighbors of the most
distant peoples?

A few years ago there was much talk over Volapük, a so-
called world language, invented by a German scholar. Now
this very wise man in effect asked one hundred twenty-five
millions of English-speaking people to give up the simplest lan-
guage on the earth, and to take in its place another language
full of the little endings that English shed several hundreds
of years ago. For us now to adopt Volapük, or German, or
Russian, would be like giving up a simple and convenient
machine in exchange for one that is complex and hard-running.